True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable. ~David Tyson Gentry
Tag Archives: travel
skywatch friday
My son took this photo on a trip to Mexico. He and my daughter-in-law went for long walks every day venturing far outside the property lines of our resort. My son has a good eye for photography, he’s less traditional than mom and likes to find the unexpected, which in Mexico isn’t hard to do. Every day, not far from this abandoned gate, they saw a lone man with a submachine gun standing guard. What he was in charge of protecting they never could figure out and they had the good sense not to ask (or take his picture!). When I think of Mexico, I can’t help but think of contrasts; the lush tropical landscapes, treasured ancient ruins, and the rich, colorful culture of its people contrasted against a history of poverty and the horrific drug war that has recently escalated. My daughter and I were just talking the other day about light and dark, good and evil and whether one can exist without the other. It’s always an interesting debate, isnt’ it?
Where there is much light, the shadow is deep. ~Johann Wolfgang Goethe
skywatch friday
…she stared out the car window and watched as the country terrain began to roll gently under a lovely postcard blue sky, the fields and meadows changing color like the patterns on a quilt, moving from pale greens to muted gold’s to faded browns, dotted here and there with grazing creamy white sheep and striped with sleeping grape vines strung out like martyrs between five foot posts. ~Chapter 15, Love is a Many Splintered Thing
skywatch friday
They’ll be no vacations this year to escape the cold and snow (8 more inches this weekend!) but here’s a pic for Skywatch from a past foray to the land of sun and sand. Of course, I’m actually in the sky looking down on the clouds instead of up, hope it still counts. That’s a bird’s eye view of Cancun Mexico, ahhh:)
The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn’t it be? – it is the same the angels breathe. ~Mark Twain
skywatch friday
Mr. bookbabie took this one on a business trip recently.
What the human eye observes causally and incuriously, the eye of the camera notes with relentless fidelity. ~ Berenice Abbott
censored saturday
Mr. bookbabie came home Wednesday and asked me if I wanted to go with him to Tonawanda, New York, he needed to make a last minute visit to an account he has there. As you may have guessed by the photos, Tonawanda borders the Niagara River and Niagara Falls. I decided to go, mostly because I liked the idea of running away from home for a few days. We thought that we might stop in Toronto for one night too, driving from Detroit it’s about two hours shorter if you cut through Canada, so we grabbed our passports and took off…
*** I decided the remainder of this post sounded too whiny so I censored myself and just put up more pics instead:)
home
So we ran away from home for five days and tried to put some space between us and the grief. The hustle and bustle of traveling, the sights and sounds and the bright warm sun of another place, a place miles and worlds away from where “it” happened temporarily slowed down the cracks forming in our hearts. Of course, the only way out of grief is to go through grief and I know that is what my son and his sweet wife will be experiencing for a very long time.
Human pain does not let go of its grip at one point in time. Rather, it works its way out of our consciousness over time. There is a season of sadness. A season of anger. A season of tranquility. A season of hope. ~Robert Veninga
book heavens
The Guardian Unlimited did a story recently about the top ten bookshops around the world. These are not your corner Barnes & Noble’s. One is in an 800 year old church, another provides books to British Royals and has been around since 1796, and the shop pictured above is a converted theater. Below is a photo from my own much more humble home office/library. When we first bought the house my husband wanted to call it “the library”. I think he had visions of retiring there in the evenings, sinking into a well worn leather chair, sipping his favorite red cab and smoking a fine, hand rolled cigar. Well I crushed that dream before the perfect shade of taupe paint on those walls was even dry! I mean, he doesn’t even like smoking cigars, he only does it when he’s with his friends after golf, it’s sooo totally a peer pressure thing (and it’s sooo not good for him). We do have lots of books in there though (my books) and a leather desk chair (my chair) at the computer (my computer) and we ended up calling it “the office”, sorry Mr. bookbabie. That darling collage on the spare chair of me and the mister and our two pets (who are now in pet heaven) was done by artist Claudine Hellmuth. After our dog Nikki died, it made me too sad to look at it, but now I’m trying to find the perfect place to hang it. I just snapped the photo this morning and as you can see the living room is flooded with sunlight. I hope it holds, I plan to go for a walk later (Melynn), even though it’s cold, cold, cold!
bookbabie 